


Insane?

by Nicholeodeon1903



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Best Friends, Insanity, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Mom - Freeform, Panic Attacks, Prompt Fic, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicholeodeon1903/pseuds/Nicholeodeon1903
Summary: I wrote this short story off a prompt that I found on Pinterest! I had a lot of fun making it in the middle of night and I hope you enjoy reading it! Prompt is in the notes. :)





	Insane?

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: You come back from holiday and find your best friend missing. You search desperately, but no one has any recollection of your friend ever existing. Eventually, you're shipped off to a lunatic asylum, where you find your best friend, who claims the same thing happened to them but it was you that no one remembered.

Although I dreaded having to leave the beach, I had been away from home for too long. It was only a week's stay but I missed being in the comfort of my apartment with my roommate who is also my best friend. I had grown nervous about her well being halfway through my vacation when she stopped answering my texts. It was usual for her not to text back immediately, but as the hours went by with still no response, something felt wrong. I burst open our front door and drop my things right inside. My best friend, Amber, is nowhere to be seen. I start to think it’s some joke or prank she’s trying to pull, “Very funny, Amber! You can come out now!” I looked around the room as I closed and locked the door behind me.

The apartment continued to stay quiet except for the sound of the AC turn on. I eventually lugged my suitcase back into my room, dropping it once more on the floor. I noticed her bedroom door was closed. Maybe she wasn’t home. She could be at work. I knocked a few times, “Amber? Are you sleeping?” No response, “I’m coming in. I don’t care if you’re naked, you were warned.” I slowly opened her bedroom door and found myself in a room with extremely cold air. It felt like no one had been in here for days.

I started to panic again. She wasn’t in the apartment. She could still be at work. I looked around the room as I plopped onto her bed and dialed her work number.

“Hello?” An unfamiliar voice answered.

“Oh, uh hi. I’m trying to reach Amber? Amber Phillips?”

“There isn’t an Amber Phillips that works here…”

“Uh, yeah there is. She started working for you guys last month.”

There was ruffling on the other end, “I’m gonna pass you to the hiring manager. Maybe he knows who you’re talking about.”

I patiently waited until I was patched through, “Hello?”

“Hi. I’m trying to find out where my roommate is. I just need to know if she came into work today. Her name is Amber Phillips.”

He flipped through some papers, “There is no record of an Amber Philips here. No one with that name has ever worked here. Sorry.”

I sighed, “Thanks anyway.” And hung up. I started to feel like I was going insane. I know Amber well enough to know she wouldn’t lie to me about this job. What reason would she have if she did?

As I stood up out of bed I noticed her keys sitting on her bedside table. My nerves continued to grow. I frantically searched through my contacts for her’s and immediately pressed call when I found it. I paced around the room with my phone at my ear, listening to the buzz of it trying to call her. The buzz started to grow like it wasn’t just next to my ear anymore. I looked around trying to see where it was coming from and found her phone sitting on her dresser. She never leaves the apartment without it. Shit. She’s in trouble.

My breath starts to shake as I grab her keys and rush out of the apartment, calling her family as I run. Our families have always been close so it wasn’t a strange occasion for me to call her mom.

“Hello?” She answered completely confused.

“Hey! I’m so glad to hear your voice! Is Amber there? She left her phone at home and-”

“Who is this?”

I paused, “It’s Rylie...Amber’s best friend?”

“How did you get my number?”

“Your daughter, Amber, gave it to me. Are you okay Ms.Philips?”

“I don’t know who you are and how you know my last name but I don’t have a daughter. Don’t call again.” She hung up.

My hands started to shake and my panic grew. Her own mother says she doesn’t have a daughter! What if Amber did something. Maybe she killed someone and got caught. God, I hope she’s not in jail.

The next person I thought to call as I’m walking down the street in the afternoon is my own mother. I hear the familiar buzz of my phone calling.

“Hey, how was the beach.”

“Unimportant, have you seen or heard from Amber?”

She sighed, “Rylie, we’re not doing this again.”

“Not doing what? What did I say?”

“Amber Phillips isn’t real. She isn’t your best friend. She never existed.”

My heart dropped to my toes. I felt nauseous. There was no way. I couldn’t be making her up. I had so many real memories with her, it’s not possible, “What do you mean she’s not real?”

She sighed again, “Where are you? I’m coming to get you so we can talk in person.”

“I’m right outside our apartment.”

“Find somewhere safe to sit for a few. I’ll be right there.”

“K.” I hung up and sat on the curb right beside me. Though my mom was the barrier of the worst news to possibly ever slip out of someone’s lips, she also was one of the few people who helped me out when I was freaking out. Like I am now knowing my life is a lie and the existence of Amber’s is. Or so everyone has been saying. I still can’t believe that I am ill enough to congregate such real feeling memories tied with such strong emotions to a fake person.

After a little bit, my mother pulled over right in front of me and I climbed into the front seat.

“Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?” She began driving again.

“Overwhelmed. Angry. Panicked. Like I was lied to. Like I’m gonna throw up. The list could go on forever.”

She laid a hand on my knee, “It’s all gonna be over soon. Just hang tight.”

Her words slipped past my mind for a moment. I was too caught up in my own thoughts to really hear. But when I noticed we weren’t on the route to go to my childhood home, I questioned what she had said, “What? What do you mean ‘it’s all gonna be over soon’? Where are we going, Mom?”

My mom removed her hand from my leg and her eyes glued tighter to the road. A quiet frown appeared on her lips, “Relax. They are gonna help you.”

Ahead of me was a mental facility. My mom pulled into it and pulled over near the front, “What? A mental hospital?”

“They are gonna help you.” She reassured.

“Help me with what? My best friend is out there somewhere! You should have taken me to the cops to file a report!”

A group of adults wearing all white scrubs opened my door and began to pull me out of the car.

I wasn’t going to go so easily. I gripped onto the side of the door and screamed, “Mom! Why are you doing this! I’m not crazy!”

The nurses pulled me until my grip gave out.

With a nurse on either side of me, holding me slightly above the ground, I continued to scream.

My mother continued to frown but drove away with ease.

“No! Let go!” I yelled and squirmed but nothing wavered their grip on my arms.

One nurse held a syringe, “It’s all going to be okay, shhh.”

“No! Get away! I don’t want whatever you're going to give me! I’m not crazy!”

The nurses collectively held my arm still for them to inject something into my system.

“No! No..you can’t....no…” I felt weaker and weaker by the second. I couldn’t scream anymore. I was too tired. My eyes felt so heavy I couldn’t help but let them shut, falling asleep in a group of strangers' arms.

When I woke, I was in a room that looked like a jail cell. Two beds, no windows, and a big metal door keeping me from going anywhere.

A shadowy figure sat at my feet, in an extremely sad state. They were crying into their hands. As I continued to wake up from whatever drug I was given, I realized this was no shadowy figure, it was Amber.

I shot up and grabbed onto her arm, scaring the shit out of her, “Amber!”

She sniffled, “Rylie! You're awake!”

I pulled her into a tight hug, “It was like you disappeared from existence! No one believed you ever existed. Not even your mom!”

“The same thing happened to me! I got home from work and went to call you but it didn’t go through. Then everyone started acting like you weren’t real. I thought I had lost you.”

“I thought I had lost you.” We both squeezed tighter.

Our eyes fell shut, extremely happy after being reunited.

That night, we slept beside each other, afraid of it all happening all over again.

I woke the next morning in my apartment bed, alone. Was it only a dream? My heart started to race and I dashed out my bedroom door and into Amber’s.

“Dude! I’m naked!” She yelled and pulled her covers up to her chin.

“Sorry!” I closed my eyes for a brief moment, “I had the strangest dream last night.”


End file.
